Grammarly infographicI'm always amazed when I hear people say things like, “I can't spell” or “I'm a terrible writer” — especially when they seem to say it with so much pride!

Of course, we can't all be professional writers, but writing skills count in most careers. The folks at Grammarly (one of my favorite websites and resources) did some research that supports that statement.

They proofread more than 400 profiles from all eight categories on the Elance platform for grammar, spelling and punctuation errors, then did some analysis on the correlation between earnings and number of mistakes.

In the engineering and manufacturing field, professionals with better writing skills earned more than double per job what those with a high rate of grammar and punctuation errors earned.

It was about the same in the legal field as well as in finance and management. In sales and marketing, earnings per job were more than two-and-a-half times greater for those whose writing included fewer mistakes.

The bottom line is that, in the freelance world, better writers tend to earn more money per job — even when the job itself is not considered writing. And I think it's safe to assume that employees who can produce accurate, error-free communications likely earn more and have a higher career potential than those who can't.

Professionals are judged every day by the quality of their writing. That's why much of my career has been spent providing ghostwriting services to entrepreneurs and professionals who don't have the time or skill to write their own books, articles, blogs, etc.

But let's be realistic: Even if you can afford it, it's just not practical to have a ghostwriter do it all for you. Grammarly offers an alternative.

I confess that my favorite Grammarly “product” is their funny social media posts (click here for their Facebook page). But you might also want to take a look at their grammar checker that checks everything you write (including documents, social media posts and emails) for grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes. Click here for more details.

Let me know what you think.

 

Jacquelyn Lynn
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